It made me walk slightly taller

On checking in at SFO I was asked whether I wanted to use my miles to upgrade.

I was stunned.

For the best part of two years I had been saving the air miles to upgrade to Upper Class but when I came to book my Christmas flights I realised that it was a con. You cannot upgrade your seat unless you purchase an upgradeable ticket. This is more expensive than a standard economy ticket and even then it is not certain that you will be able to upgrade as it depend on availability of seats.

And so I had given up on that idea and was planning a holiday using air miles (the con here being that you can only fly when paying customers do not, i.e. off-season and at short notice). However, on checking in at SFO I was asked whether I wanted to use my miles to upgrade.

I said yes.

I held up the queue for a good twenty minutes as Michelle telephoned around, getting the rules broken for me. She explained that they had overbooked the flight (do they ever not?) and so were letting people upgrade even without the necessary ticket. I could not believe my luck and was expecting the news that it was a mistake any moment.

It was not and I was handed my purple boarding pass and an invitation to the Virgin Upper Class Lounge.

With a suppressed squeal, I skipped to the lounge. A Virgin representative gave me a tour of the facilities. Computers were of course present. As were showers. Between two seating areas, stretched the bar. The lounge looked out over the planes with the runway in the distance and had the sun streaming through the tinted windows. I parked myself bathed in blue light on a sofa and listened to the gentle jazz playing in the background. A waiter in black with a jaunty black cap on his head brought me crisps and an appletini (I have been watching too much Scrubs lately). Overwhelmed by the aura of the place, I found myself preceding my food order with the words "I was interested in..." rather than the usual "I would like...". And so I found myself with a cocktail and a Caesar salad (I wasn't hungry but I had paid for the service after all) idling away an hour before the flight.





Usually when I board a plane, I feel no rush to get on and look at those that push forward in the queue with some confusion. It can take between 30 minutes and an hour to fill the 747 and there is never any reason to be seated in your ridiculously small area for that additional time. However, with an Upper Class seat, I was eager to hop on.

And I am glad I did because it certainly took me all that time to catch my breath with the whirlwind of it all. There were twenty-four seats in my area (twelve rows of two) plus a massage area. My seat was wide and leather with a footstool at the end. The seatbelt was padded. My flightsocks were cotton. The headphones were noise-cancelling. I had toothpaste and a toothbrush (and the option to have moisturiser if I knew what it was for). But most amazing of it all were the pyjamas, black and soft. Once we were in the air, we all went into the toilet to change into them becoming quite the cult in our matching clothing.

Back in economy, I always smirked at the way the introduction to the entertainment included the line "if you are lucky enough to be seated in Upper Class, you should already have been introduced to your Freedom Menu". I can say that it was no laughing matter when actually lucky. I had to choose between the most exquisite sounding dishes not to mention the full wine and cocktail list. I believe I made a mistake in trusting the steward with his recommendation of the Christmas dinner (turkey outside of the US is always nasty) but my other dishes were superb. The meal started with a steward bringing out my table from its stowed position and laying a linen table cloth on it. A (linen covered) tray was brought out with a fancy swirl of butter and salt and pepper shakers in the shape of planes. We were offered bread from a large selection and to my delight they had wonderfully warm garlic bread (with what looked like a whole clove chopped onto each slice). For my first course I had a leaf salad with slightly pink beef. It was without a doubt the best salad in the world. I only wish I knew what they had in it. I couldn't even identify the white salad ingredients. After the rather standard Christmas dinner I skipped the cheese course and had dessert. The Christmas pudding option sounded like it could have been another disaster (but the foreign gentleman behind me declared it wonderful with much surprise) so I plumped for the vanilla icecream. Of course, it was not served plain but with a strawberry, mint and black pepper compote that was an exciting adventure with every spoonful. And also three Cadbury's chocolate fingers. Which was an... interesting touch. Meanwhile, I was savouring a Shiraz. In economy I take the view that I need to get as much alcohol in me as possible to send myself to sleep but here I was so much in love with the deep red nectar that I was content to let it sit for hours.

After the meal was cleared (with impeccable service I should say that neither rushed me nor left me with dirty plates for very long) a stewardess made my bed up for me (a fairly complex procedure of flipping the chair and getting the sheet and duvet on) and I attempted sleep. It was comfortable and I had room to roll so I could have been successful if I wasn't still jetlagged from Japan and hence totally on the wrong time-zone. Actually I would guess that I achieved some sleep as the first hour sped by pretty fast. However, I gave up before breakfast time and enjoyed myself watching more television from my recumbent position.

Breakfast involved choosing from varieties of cereal, bread/cake goods, meat-based items and others like fruit and yoghurt. Aghast at the choice, I only requested two items: fresh fruit and a bacon sandwich. The fruit was indeed fresh; pineapples, strawberries, blueberries and oranges. The bacon buttie was disturbingly healthy though. Do they not realise that its entire appeal is in the fat soaking into the bread? The tea that came with it was not going to win any awards however.

After breakfast there was a rush to get changed into street-clothes before we landed and to go through the usual motions of washing and brushing teeth. And then a horrible wait in a holding pattern for the brave souls in air-traffic control to guide us down through the fog. I almost felt regret to leave the plane. How strange is that?